"Two months ago everybody was in a panic about the sovereign debt crisis, and now it's like everybody is going on holiday and everything is fine," he said.

Talking about the results of last month's stress tests of 91 major European banks, Mr Noronha was scathing, saying the process was flawed. "The point of a stress test is that you stress something until it breaks. These tests included a ridiculous definition of tier-one capital and allowed some banks with... 1.7pc to show levels above 6pc," he said.